Chapter Text
“I knew you bastards would come running here again.” Monobear had its back pressed against the pink dome, eyes twinkling with amusement as it peered up at Aoi and Makoto. “That’s the thing about humans. You build these connections with other humans and feel the need to develop feelings for them. Even though it causes you a hell of a lot of pain, you do it anyway...” It heaved out a sigh and dropped its chin forward a bit. “Humans are weird.”
“Why are you here?” Aoi asked, staring down, hands clasped over her heart. “I thought you were with the others.”
Monobear’s ears twitched. “Weren’t you listening? I said I knew you bastards would come running here again.” It folded its arms over its chest and kept its gaze on Makoto. “Y’know, if you go back in, you’re just going to float into the sky.”
“That’s...!” Makoto bit down on his lip and looked away. He hated it when Monobear was right.
“Luckily...” Monobear cupped its paws over its mouth. “... I have the ability to keep my feet on the ground. If you want, I can go fetch one of the others, and I’m sure Kirigiri-san’s ribbons will pull you all back over. So what do you say?” It tilted its head to one side. “You want to go back in? Who knows, Naegi-kun might have a change of heart if he sees his chums.”
Aoi glanced at Makoto.
He clenched his fists.
“Don’t take your time deciding,” Monobear said. “This witch’s barrier is growing, your friends are probably dying...”
“Do it.” Makoto’s fingernails dug deeper into his wrinkled palms. “Tell them that we’re here.”
“Yeah!” Aoi nodded vehemently. “And we’re not taking ‘no!’ for an answer this time.”
“Oh, you’re even getting me fired up!” Monobear clutched its stomach and with a hearty laugh, it vanished.
The departure of Monobear, along with its voice that nearly always crept cold fingers down Makoto’s spine, released a heavy silence that sank into his shoulders. He inhaled sharply.
Aoi turned her head.
Makoto accidentally made eye contact and felt like he needed to say something. “Asahina-san, you don’t have to go in too. I might have to make a wish, and you could get hurt, and-!”
Her hand fell hard onto his shoulder. “Naegi.” She combated the hot, white tension in his body with a smile that beamed gentle warmth. The furrow between her eyebrows deepened. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, okay? I’m in this until the end and nothing you say is going to make me change my mind.”
Despite the dread that wallowed in his gut, he managed to smile back. “Thanks.”
Part of the dome started to ripple, the size of a doorway. Monobear emerged out of it first, twirling on the spot once all of its body had passed through, and shortly after appeared Sakura. She brought with her no grins nor did she dance or bob up and down on her feet. Within seconds, she spotted the pair and bounded over with speed that either caused Makoto to jump back or be thrown back.
Or both. He regained his balance.
“Naegi. Asahina.” Sakura grabbed hold of Aoi’s shoulders and gave a rough shake that only caused Aoi to bow her head forward. “Why... are you still here...?” Telltale tremors betrayed Sakura’s hands. She stared in disbelief - disbelief that left little room for anger. “You should not be here. Did I not say that your future is what matters most to me, Asahina?”
“You did say that...” Aoi balled her hands into fists. “... but my future is with you! It is. It has to be. I...” A sob not totally choked back burst out of Aoi’s lips. “I love you, Sakura-chan, and if you weren’t there... then what kind of future is that?” Her face wobbled as she shot a wet glare at Sakura’s eyes. “Does that kind of future give you strength, Sakura-chan? Because it doesn’t give me any!”
“... I cannot say.” The answer came clenched in a thick tone. “I cannot say it does. I can, however, say that I love you as well.”
Aoi reached up and cupped Sakura’s cheek. A tear rode down over cragged skin, splashing against the curve between Aoi’s thumb and index finger. She forced herself to smile until Sakura smiled too, and then Aoi’s smile grew more genuine. Her eyes shone.
Dew hung from Aoi’s eyelashes, sparkling stars in an eyelash sky.
Then, rising up to tiptoe, Aoi pulled Sakura into a kiss.
Monobear scowled. “To think I could be watching kids get murdered right now. I bet Togami-kun wouldn’t allow something this gross to happen if he was here.”
I sometimes wonder if the puppets remember their earlier performances. Do they fall in love, again and again, even if they don’t remember falling in love? Does that love linger and carry over between performances?
Sakura stepped forward with Makoto and Aoi under her arms.
They phased through the dome’s surface and it rippled around them, intangible, as if a mere trick of the light or a mirage. How lovely it would be if it was a mirage. Makoto could have landed on his face and found himself in the city centre. A moment of confusion would transpire and then he would hear his name. He would look over his shoulder and see Komaru waving her arm as she broke into a jog, heading over to him. Weaving through the crowd would prove cumbersome but she would soon stand before him, and the others would be there. Byakuya would state that Makoto took too long and Touko would agree, and maybe they would be standing so close that no one could tell they were holding hands, and Kyouko would stand back from it all and listen. Yasuhiro, he ought to tell a joke, so he would, but no one would laugh. Maybe Sayaka would laugh, behind her hand, and Mondo and Kiyotaka would have their arms around each other’s shoulders and be absorbed in their own conversation. Sakura would twitch her hand and nod her head and finally, finally, Mukuro would come forward and she wouldn’t lie, she wouldn’t wear her mask, and she would say,
“Naegi?” Byakuya asked in a sharp tone. “So you two really did come back?”
The lid of a jack-in-the-box witch screeched open. Out popped a jester that headbutted Byakuya in the stomach and launched him backward. His back arched and he needed a moment to steady himself, his ribbon slightly twisted around his leg.
More of the city had separated from the ground while Makoto was gone, shredding the terrain into an unrecognisable wasteland. No buildings, trees nor crowds obscured their view. Left now were ruins which served to remind Makoto that something used to be, used to live there, and witch barriers that danced above like fireflies in a mocking blue sky.
To Makoto’s relief, all of his friends were still alive. To his horror, so was Junko, approaching from the distance.
Touko fired a red bolt into the box just as the jester started to spring back inside.
Time seemed to still as if wanting to let Makoto have a proper look. He saw the witch’s black jester hat and its pink hair and pink pupils, and its jagged teeth bared in a grin and its hooked nose. The lid shut and an explosion went off inside. Thick fragments of metal shot outward, box destroyed, and the jester, once painted with saturated colours, sported crispy black hair in its greyscale colour scheme. Its spring extended and contracted a few times, flimsy, and the witch decomposed with tears streaming down its cheeks.
This witch was once a teenager like them. With a life, with friends, with family, with a favourite colour and their own unique laugh. Its box, that had been embellished with designs of cogwheels, might have meant something to the magical girl that it used to be, once upon a time.
“Well, Naegi-kun?” asked Kyouko, attaching a ribbon to Makoto’s and Aoi’s ankles. “What are you doing here?”
Sakura released her hold on them.
Makoto wet his lips with his tongue in an attempt to delay his answer. To give him more time to think of a way to phrase his feelings. “You’re my friends.”
“And we’re magical girls.” Yasuhiro splayed out his hand and pressed his fingertips against his chest. “If I was you, I would have hightailed it out of here...” He avoided Makoto’s gaze. “That’s what I want to do right now... That’s what makes sense, ‘right?”
Junko’s footsteps shook the ground.
Yasuhiro’s breath quivered. “But... you know, Naegi-chi, I don’t want to run anymore. I want to be in control and I can’t do that if I rely on my initial instincts all the time. Sometimes you’ve got to just go in and let it all hang out, ‘right? That’s how you live your own life.”
Each step sounded like thunder.
Over the horizon loomed the second Sun. Junko Enoshima with her flaming hair, orbited by orbs.
“To defeat despair that concentrated, you would need an equal amount of hope,” Monobear said while staring directly at Makoto.
Everyone tensed.
Makoto ripped his attention away from the scene and placed it onto Monobear.
“Luckily for you, you’re packed with the stuff! Gooey chewy icky wicky hope.” Monobear tilted its head to one side. “So what’dya say?”
The city screamed as it ascended into the bottomless pit above their heads. Debris. People. Everything he had ever known. All meeting their end.
Junko’s limbs dragged.
“Naegi-kun...” Kyouko’s elbows pressed inward into her sides.
Byakuya narrowed his eyes into slits.
Monobear held up a paw. “You want to make a contract with me and save the world?”
Makoto heard his friends’ ragged breathing, saw how their shoulders were bowed forward, and he swept his eyes up from their rumpled clothing to their tired eyes. Junko trudged onward, missing her left hand but otherwise intact. Where she had been amputated, he expected to see a wound, but inside her arm was pink polyester filling. It reminded him of candyfloss.
He opened his mouth.
“No.”
“... Huh?” Monobear’s paw dropped to dangle by its side. “Eh?”
“I said no,” Makoto clarified, allowing himself to look at Monobear. From where he was, up high, Monobear seemed so small, down there. “If what you’re saying is right, I have enough hope to defeat Enoshima-san and I won’t let you harvest any of it!”
He whipped his hand forward, extending a finger. Monobear flailed, nearly tipping back, as if Makoto had electrocuted it by pointing in its direction.
Makoto’s voice cracked slightly but he maintained his bravado. “Ikusaba-san repeated this period of time over and over again because she forced herself to alone be burdened by her wish, unable to choose where her loyalty lay, led on by the supposed hope you gave her. She isolated herself from her friends and it became too much for her in the end... all because you took advantage of her moment of greatest despair.”
The ground rumbled. Byakuya and Kyouko turned toward Junko, now not so distant.
“So?” Monobear asked. “I granted her wish, didn’t I? I granted everyone’s wishes. I get lots of energy and you get a gold egg or whatever you kids are into these days. Everyone wins.”
“You give teenagers false hope,” said Makoto. “Then you get them to despair even more when their wish goes wrong...!”
Touko turned toward Junko. Yasuhiro did too.
“Maybe they should think harder about how they word their wishes,” said Monobear. “Did you ever think of that?”
Makoto shouted, “You took advantage of them! You twisted their wishes on purpose. You never cared about of them. You only care about converting hope into despair!”
“Yeah!” Yasuhiro chimed in. “I bet there isn’t even a Mono Council. You’re just a damn capitalist!”
Monobear flushed. “Without those wishes that I granted, we’d never be having this conversation. You’d be full of despair! Dead!”
“No.” Makoto’s nostrils flared. “We would all be alive. Many of us would have worked through that despair-induced period instead of making a wish because it seemed like things wouldn’t improve, and those who couldn’t work through it would end up dead anyway. But they wouldn’t have died for your cause.”
Touko aimed her crossbow at Junko. “That bear’s wishes... are just like putting duct tape over a growing crack...”
“Okay then,” said Monobear. “Okay, Mr. Know-it-all. Mr. Smarty-pants. Let’s see you use that hope of yours!”
Sakura brought her gauntlets to chest level.
Kyouko’s ribbons vibrated.
Only Byakuya’s lips moved when he spoke. “Naegi, unless you want to kill us all, do divulge how exactly we are meant to harness this hope of yours.”
Makoto narrowed his eyes, thinking. “I guess... you just have to believe in me.”
Byakuya allowed himself to glare at Makoto. “You’re not serious.”
Yasuhiro wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. His hand trembled. “Naegi-chi, I know you mean well but Togami-chi has a point. This isn’t a made for T.V. movie, and even that line I just said is becoming an unoriginal remark...”
“B-Besides...” Touko swallowed, forced to continuously readjust her aim because her body kept shaking. “... there are all those witches flying around too. Only Byakuya-sama managed to deal any noticeable damage to Enoshima earlier, w-when everyone attacked together... and you weren’t there to see it...”
“So do that again,” said Makoto.
Everyone turned toward him.
Junko was close.
“Ignore the other witches,” he said. “If you all work as one, you might be able to win! That’s where Ikusaba-san failed, I think.”
She was very close.
“You th-think?” asked Touko. “Y-You don’t sound sure at all.”
“We tried something similar near the beginning,” said Kyouko. “However, before we could all attack as one, we were distracted by the witches that she summoned. I wonder if that was Enoshima-san’s intention...”
“Let us give Naegi’s suggestion a try,” decided Sakura, and no one dissented.
Three orbs floated around Junko’s head but more winked up in the sky, hard to see in the bright blue but there all the same. They collapsed inward, these three orbs, liberating the witches inside. One witch looked like a clock face, the right side of it a cartoon sun with lines sticking out of its circumference, and the other half was white with craters much like the moon. Its centre dial spun around, and around, its dozen of hands flowing at different speeds, never stopping except for a split second to change direction, none satisfied with any of the unlabelled marks around the clock’s edge.
Junko threw a punch at the ground. Kyouko maneuvered everyone’s bodies out of the way in time but Junko’s fist pinned down their ribbons. The ribbons disappeared and new ribbons sprung up in the distance, pulling the humans over to safety.
“Hey!” Monobear waved its arms and stamped its feet. “That thing almost pancaked me!”
Another witch, a second one, was a clay birdcage with a flaming nightingale inside, or maybe it was the playdough pig that carried the cage over its head. It landed on the ground on its hind legs, zigzagging as it stumbled toward the magical girls. The clock witch descended and followed after it.
Kyouko glanced at Makoto and Aoi.
“Go,” said Makoto, smiling. “I believe in you guys. Don’t worry about us.”
She turned her back to him. “Naegi-kun...”
Makoto opened his eyes a bit wider.
Her skirt fluttered.
“You are honest, Naegi-kun. Perhaps foolishly so.”
His smile dropped a little.
“I said this before but it still rings true... There’s a goodness in you that I’ve never encountered in anyone else.” She looked over her shoulder and finally smiled.
Makoto’s smile regenerated.
Yasuhiro held up his hands. “If you guys want to kiss, do it after. Seriously.”
Everyone else reddened.
Kyouko extended the ribbons of everyone except Makoto and Aoi, shooting herself and the others upward and toward Junko. The ribbons around Aoi and Makoto, meanwhile, instead started to curl around their legs, looping up their bodies until everything below their neck was in a cocoon.
Monobear waddled over and watched the battle alongside them. “This is quite the show, huh?”
One of the arms on the clock witch pinged off. Touko deflected it with her shield but countered with no bolts, eyes on Junko.
“You know, I’m surprised. I didn’t think you would make it this far.” Monobear scratched at the back of its head. “It’s frustrating, actually, that something like this hasn’t overpowered you bastards yet.”
The pig witch wildly brandished its cage, knocking the bird inside it against the bars. Flaming feathers burst out through the gaps with each thump. They moved swiftly, the feathers, whistling through the air. Yasuhiro and Sakura plunged than swooped up, dodging the projectiles that zipped their way, eyes on Junko.
“But, I wonder...” Monobear rubbed its chin. “Upupupu... I wonder if defeating Enoshima-san will really solve your problems?”
Makoto turned.
Finally, the third witch attacked. Though it had a humanoid shape, its hands had been detached from its arms and stitched over its eyes. On top of that, a second pair of legs protruded out of its hips, spindly and longer than the rest of its body. The witch’s elbows were tucked into its sides and if its hands had been attached to its arms, they would have been cupped over its breasts.
Kyouko and Byakuya nodded at each other and whirled around the witch. Their ribbons wrapped around the witch’s legs, binding it. With it now immobilised, the two magical girls continued onward, eyes on Junko.
Monobear held its paws behind its back, rocking between heel and toe. “Naegi-kun, there has been a circus of witches, hasn’t there?”
All five magical girls situated themselves in a row in front of Junko’s face.
“Are you seriously going to keep this up?” asked Aoi. “Do you have to be such a sore loser about this?”
“Sore loser...?” repeated Monobear. “Is that it?”
Byakuya darted down to Junko’s feet. Kyouko positioned herself near Junko’s chest. Yasuhiro and Touko claimed Junko’s right and left arms and Sakura stayed level with Junko’s head.
Aoi furrowed her brow. “What do you mean ‘is that it’? You’re trying to scare us, aren’t you?”
Kyouko raised a hand, keeping it rigid. “On three, we attack simultaneously. Prepare your strongest attack.”
Everyone else nodded.
Sakura’s fists glowed white.
Monobear said, “Defeating Enoshima-san won’t revive the dead.”
“One...”
Yasuhiro straightened out his headscarf with a flick of his wrist. From its folds floated out a cannon that Makoto had seen before, only this one was bigger. Far bigger.
“Defeating Enoshima-san won’t destroy the other witches,” said Monobear.
Byakuya’s kusarigama shone golden.
“Two...” Kyouko pulled a strip of ribbon out of her palm. It transformed into a spear with lengths of black twined around its silver shaft. Her spear’s pointed head emitted purple that hung in the air as her weapon moved, as if the air was paper and the pointed head was a pen nib.
“You could wish for anything, Naegi-kun,” said Monobear.
Makoto chewed on his bottom lip.
Monobear tilted its head back. “On top of all those problems, none of-”
“Three!”
Kyouko charged.
Byakuya whipped forward his weapon’s weighted chain.
Sakura swung her fist.
Touko fired a green bolt.
Yasuhiro’s cannon boomed.
Pieces of Junko crashed into the ground.
Then chunks of the city did too.
As the magical girls took to the sky, dipping into witches’ barriers and reappearing when the orb around them vanished, to then throw themselves at a neighbouring orb, the only thing Makoto could think about was that Junko Enoshima had been defeated. She was dead. Makoto and his friends had departed from the crayon drawing of her witch’s barrier, from its cheery wasteland, to reality.
His smile burned his face.
“We won,” said Aoi for the however many time. He lost count. He didn’t care that he lost count. Tears stained her cheeks. She laughed. “They saved the day.”
The ribbons around them loosened and coiled at their feet. Neither of them floated off the ground.
Monobear didn’t comment, standing away from them with its back to them.
Aoi’s lips stretched into a smirk. “Well? How do you like that, huh?” She jumped up and punched the air, laughing again. Louder this time.
Makoto balled his hands into fists. The ground blurred. He didn’t stop smiling. “Kom...aru...” His fists tightened. “D-Dad...”
“O-Oh... Right.” Aoi winced. “I forgot about your family...”
“... U... pu... pu...”
A gust of wind blew past.
She shivered and hugged herself.
“Did you notice something about these witches?” asked Monobear, still facing away.
Realising that Makoto wasn’t going to answer, Aoi said, “I... don’t think so...?”
Monobear puffed out its chest, surveying the sky. “It isn’t something that the witches have. In fact, it’s the opposite. They are missing something...”
Aoi quirked her brow. “Missing something...?”
Witch barriers snuffed out above them, one-by-one.
“Choose a magical girl,” said Monobear, “and time the intervals between barriers.”
She lifted her chin. Sakura leaped from one witch’s barrier to another. As soon as Sakura phased through the barrier, Aoi pulled out her phone from her shorts pocket and clicked on its stopwatch app.
Four minutes.
Then the next witch.
Six minutes.
The next witch.
Ten minutes.
Aoi stared at her phone. “They’re... getting slower...?”
Her hand clenched tighter.
“Why... are they getting slower...?”
Makoto sucked in air, realising. “None of the witches dropped any Grief Seeds.”
“Huh?” Aoi turned her head. Her eyebrows lowered. “No... No. That’s... That can’t be right.”
“Your friends are tired,” said Monobear. “They didn’t have that many Grief Seeds in the first place, you know. They must have used them all by now. You can thank Ishimaru-kun for that.”
“Shut up,” said Makoto.
Monobear looked back. “Ooh, you’re getting feisty now. Did I strike a nerve talking about your Ishimaru-kun?”
“Shut up!”
“Upupupu!” Monobear spun around to face them. “Your hope might have been enough to beat Enoshima-san, but it won’t be enough to get your buddies through the aftermath. They’ll be too weak any moment now.”
As if on cue, his friends started to drop down within minutes of each other, beginning with Yasuhiro. Last was Kyouko, whose legs buckled a bit as she landed.
Makoto’s gaze jumped from Soul Gem to Soul Gem. Byakuya’s chest. Sakura’s choker. Yasuhiro’s forehead. Touko’s bow collar. Each was splattered with black but flecked with different colours. Red flecks in Byakuya’s green Soul Gem. Green flecks in Sakura’s blue Soul Gem. Pink flecks in Yasuhiro’s yellow Soul Gem. Blue flecks in Touko’s purple Soul Gem.
“No,” said Aoi, clapping her hands to her mouth.
“Yes,” Monobear replied gleefully.
“Everyone...” Makoto stepped forward. He felt a pain in the back of his throat. “Your Soul Gems, I’m sorry...”
“Enough.” Byakuya’s face was flinty. “I don’t care to hear it. Magical girls are snakes. Witches are shrews. Snakes eat shrews but sometimes shrews eat snakes. That’s all there is to it.”
After what they had found out about the true origins of witches, the comparison to a food web was now as shaky as his voice.
Yasuhiro looked ready to throw up and sounded almost as ready. “Naegi-chi, it’s no big deal, ‘r-right?” He rubbed the back of his neck, trying for a reassuring grin and failing. “I could have run away ages ago but I didn’t... That’s gotta count for something, doesn’t it?”
Kyouko raised her right hand and closed her eyes. With her left hand, she peeled off her glove to show them the skin underneath. Her hand was covered in scars, likely from acid burns, and on the back of her hand was her dying Soul Gem.
“Kirigiri-san...” Makoto reached out to touch her hand but caught himself just before he made contact.
She shook her head and pressed her naked palm against his palm. Her fingers slipped through the gaps between his fingers, interlocking.
“Don’t worry about us, Naegi-kun. You mustn’t let Monobear use your hope and your potential.” A tear droplet dripped off her chin. “If you achieve that, you will have defeated him.”
Makoto’s jaw ached. His eyes were hot. “No.”
He stepped back.
Their hands fell away.
“I’m ready to make my wish,” he said.
Kyouko widened her eyes.
The others chorused his name.
“Upupupu!” Monobear conjured up a clipboard and pen. A pair of spectacles appeared over its eyes. “Do go on. Thanks to Ikusaba-san, you can wish for anything. Just what do you think is as valuable as your soul?”
Makoto pushed back his shoulders. “My wish... is for you and those able to create magical girls to be erased from existence. Past, present and future. That way, you’ll never be able to take advantage of teenagers like this ever again.”
Orange light radiated from his chest. He stretched out his neck and stood tall.
Monobear dropped its clipboard and shifted a foot back. It clasped its paws together over its chest, trembling. “Jeg forstår ikke japansk eller engelsk eller hva språket denne fanfiction er i.”
Yasuhiro drove his fingers back through his hair. “He’s busting out google translate now...”
Byakuya folded his arms over his chest. “Pathetic.”
After a few more shakes, Monobear stilled.
“Upupupu. I have to paw it to you, Naegi-kun, I wasn’t expecting to hear you wish that.” Monobear stared up into Makoto’s eyes. “I’m a bear obligated to grant every wish... but you should know that your wish will rewrite the universe, most likely. People might be born that weren’t before, or people who were born here might cease to exist, and others could be born in a different year.”
“That’s fine,” said Makoto. Orange light spread to the rest of his body. It tingled a bit.
Monobear’s red eye glinted as it leaned its head to one side. “Even I will come back, just in some other kind of form.”
“My hope will defeat you,” Makoto replied. “Each and every time, no matter what universe.”
In a flash of orange light, Monobear vanished.
Makoto looked at everyone in turn. At his friends.
Byakuya rolled his eyes. “Finally.”
“Finally,” echoed Touko, standing close to Byakuya’s side.
Yasuhiro let out a laugh. “I guess I’ll see you guys on the flipside, ‘right? You’ll still all owe me for whatever predictions I made in this lifetime.”
“You wish,” said Aoi.
Sakura nodded at Makoto.
Light spread out from his body and consumed all of his friends.
Almost all of his friends. Kyouko strode forward, through the orange glow, and rested her hands onto Makoto’s shoulders. Behind her, he thought he could see the silhouettes of a few of his friends. Sayaka... Mondo... Kiyotaka... Mukuro... They were all there. They would be waiting for him too.
“Naegi-kun...”
The outline of Kyouko’s body blazed and she began to disintegrate, like a piece of paper that had been set on fire, and Makoto disintegrated as well.
“I don't feel sad to leave, but...” Kyouko gave a faint smile. “There's a strange feeling stirring inside me.”
She leaned in and kissed Makoto on the mouth.
He held onto her hips.
They flickered orange, one final time, and then disappeared entirely.